Cold Bailey Unicorn wash room

Sep 11, 2005
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Hi all,
The Alden heating in our Bailey works well in the living area but the wash room struggles now that the weather is turning colder, the towel rail does get hot but find it not adequate enough to heat the large washroom, I would be most interested to hear what other Bailey owners think thanks
 

Mel

Mar 17, 2007
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We have a Series 3 Unicorn and in this series the towel rail is replaced by a radiator because of feedback that the towel rail didn't heat the room. :(
Mel
 
Mar 10, 2006
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Its a common and much reported issue with the U1.
We put a piece of card in the shower vent, leave the door ajar, and boost the temperature with a 1Kw fan heater when showering.

Some did fit radiators but you then lose the weight of your personal weight allowance, and they are not cheap, later models of the U1 had more slots are something below the radiator or should i say towel rail, as its only one pipe in with no return, i have the later version but its still cool.
 
May 7, 2012
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The radiator solution might be expensive but if you plan to keep it for the long term it could be justified. It would put the weight up though so I would also see if the MTPLM can be increased as in most cases it can.
 
Mar 10, 2006
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WoodlandsCamper said:
xtrailman said:
...., as its only one pipe in with no return,

How does that work then, as a radiator needs a flow (in and out) to work? :huh:

Its not a radiator, but a towel rail.
Later versions did have a flow and return but still lack the CSA that a proper radiator has, give the Alde site a check over it shows (or did) the outputs of various options available.

All the finned radiators all use a 22mm pipe with push on fins , so you can actually make your own heat exchanger, or modify an existing one.

The SA U1 caravans can be upgraded to 1600kg with usually an increase in tyre pressure, and a small charge.
 
Feb 3, 2008
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Call it what you like, a radiator or a towel rail, it still needs an IN and an OUT for the flow of water to transfer the heat. Try turning a domestic radiator off at one end - it don't work, because there isn't a flow !! :eek:hmy:
 
Mar 10, 2006
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It does get very hot in practise, not theory.

Latest version is in/out
http://www.alde.co.uk/searchresults.php?itemName=towel+rail&Submit+now=Go
 
Mar 10, 2006
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This shows mine.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=picture+of+alde+towel+rail+from+2010&hl=en-GB&rlz=1T4GGHP_en-GBGB589GB589&tbm=isch&imgil=PlrbLZxk-NSAxM%253A%253BTStc3_B0mn56_M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.mycaravan.org.uk%25252FAlde.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=PlrbLZxk-NSAxM%253A%252CTStc3_B0mn56_M%252C_&usg=__dPqfDNQOrOxYkys4LBFVfnTtWko%3D&biw=1366&bih=589&ved=0ahUKEwihx4bU-JHQAhXpKsAKHTmtDrwQyjcIOw&ei=Q_wdWOGZMenVgAa52rrgCw#imgrc=PlrbLZxk-NSAxM%3A
 
Mar 8, 2009
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Alde towel rail, -- surprised me too!

Towel%20Rail_zpsvu409duy.jpg
 
Sep 11, 2005
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I can only assume the people at Alde are much more clever than you as it is a towel rail and only has one pipe connection and the rail gets hot but if you read my query I stated that the towel rail was not adequate to heat the large wash room so rather baffled why you should want to make statements irrelevant to my request, I myself only give advice on the things I know about not what I think I know. Thanks any way to the helpful ones who replied with some help.
 
Mar 14, 2005
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WoodlandsCamper said:
Call it what you like, a radiator or a towel rail, it still needs an IN and an OUT for the flow of water to transfer the heat. Try turning a domestic radiator off at one end - it don't work, because there isn't a flow !! :eek:hmy:

High Woodlands

I haven't seen this particular heated towel rail in the flesh, so what I'm about to write is based on a well reported dynamic effect of moving fluids in contact with a surface, the "Coanda" effect. This is where a jet of fluid will 'attach' to a surface, and will tend to follow the path of the surface until its velocity reduces or something else disturbs it.

You can easily see this effect if you turn on a tap, and a spoon vertically and make the back of the spoon touch the falling water. The water will start to follow the curve of the spoon. This is the same effect that allows aircraft wings to work.

In the towel rail scenario, the flow of hot water in the CH pipe will find the the TEE coupling and teh inner surface of the coupling will curve into the towel rail riser pipe. The velocity of the water flow will cause the water in close contact with tee will try to follow the curve of the fitting and thus sme hot water with a velocity will find its way into the riser pipe. As the pipe is of a modest diameter (About 22mm) there is enough csa to allow hot water to move up one side if the riser, whilst cooler water can move down the other side. The hot water will have velocity from its initial thrust from the CH circulation, but also as the pipe is vertical, it will acquire a buoyancy over the cooler water in the rail. The design of the rail will encourage a circulatory effect as the hot water tends to rise to the top directly through the tall riser, but as the water loses its heat and buoyancy it will tend to fall by its increased density down the 'P' leg, rejoining the lower part of the riser, where a bi directional laminar flow takes place within the short length of pipe.

This process will enable the rail to function, but the rate at which heat can be transferred is relatively low compared to a full flow radiator. It will only work if the towel rail can lose enough heat to cool the water to raise its density enough to start the convection effect.

There are tricks the manufacture cold use to improve the flow, initially simply inserting a long springy blade inside the lower part of the riser to divide the pipe internally to create hot in and cold out sides pipe. If the same blade also protruded through the TEE coupling and into the CH pipe some way it would help to divert more flow into the rail.

The more recent adaption of the twin TEE piece and the distinct in and out pipes is a variation of the same process. which has often been used in large scale heating systems in buildings. Sometimes there is a small restriction in the tee piece sections which will encourage water to divert through the radiator loop.

A totally different approach where a single pipe closed at both ends can transfer a lot of heat was used in the Carver Cascade Mk1 (Copper mushroom) heater from the 1980's

This used a two phase thermal heat pipe which infact is a deceptively simple but very effective and reliable process. Heat is used to vapourise a fluid, but them by allowing the vaspour to lose its heat it will condense back to its liquid state.

I saw this component being manufactured at Carver's factory. I found the concept fascinating and it was explained in some detail.

The heat pipe was manufactured from a 300mm length of ordinary 22 mm copper pipe that was bent to about 80 degrees and sealed at both ends. When mounted in the heater one end of the pipe was vertical and was located inside the water tank, the lower part extended through the floor bent to about 80 degrees and finned to collect heat from the gas burner underneath.

Inside the heat pipe all air had been excluded by boiling some distilled water and then sealing the pipe. As school children we probably all watched the collapsing tin can experiment where a sealed tin full of steam is allowed to cool, and as the steam condenses back to water, the internal pressure drops, and the pressure differential from outside to inside increases until te overcome the strength of the tin and it collapses.
In the case of the Cascade, the pipe does not collapse, so the effect is a considerable vacuum is formed inside the tube.

The internal low pressure has the effect of reducing the water's boiling point, and in practice it was usually below 40C!.

The finned lower leg was the lowest point of the pipe, so the liquid water would always collect there, but the rest of tube was filled with water vapour, and the same temperature and pressure. But once the burner was lit, the water in the pipe would very quickly start to boil, releasing more vapour which raises the pressure inside the pipe. The warmer vapour would rise to wards the top of the tube, and when it came into contact with a cooler part of the pipe which was inside teh water tank it would give up its heat to the wall of the pipe and condense back to its liquid state, where gravity would return it to the finned section. The control system would turn off the burner when the tank of water was hot enough.

The fact this system starts to operate at such low temperatures would allow it to be used for teh towel. The rail's bottom section only needs to protrude into the CH water stream to be able to effectively pick up heat and transfer it all around the towel rail.
 
Oct 3, 2013
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Read somewhere (think it was on an Alde forum ) - The washroom is the furthest point in the hot water circuit from the boiler,the hot water feed going to all the other radiators in the van first and by the time it gets to the washroom it has lost heat..The discussion in the forum was about this and Alde offered some solution involving reversing the pipework at the boiler so that the washroom was nearest the boiler.Do a search on Alde and hopefully you will find the forum.
 
Oct 22, 2016
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bertieboy1 said:
Read somewhere (think it was on an Alde forum ) - The washroom is the furthest point in the hot water circuit from the boiler,the hot water feed going to all the other radiators in the van first and by the time it gets to the washroom it has lost heat..The discussion in the forum was about this and Alde offered some solution involving reversing the pipework at the boiler so that the washroom was nearest the boiler.Do a search on Alde and hopefully you will find the forum.

Then there is a simple remedy, add a Tee just after the hot water comes out of the boiler and run a pipe direct to the towel rail – result, hot water will go straight to it. End of problem.
 
Mar 10, 2006
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I put some lagging over the heat exchanger behind the front chest, this area was reported as being too hot, so it made sense to reduce some heat output to enable more heat into the rest of the cabin.

There is also an Alde alli pipe running behind the fridge, its not lagged so its wasting heat through the fridge vents, i've also lagged that.

I wouldn't fancy trying to run an extra pipe because it involves cutting holes in difficult to access places, and i'm not sure that reversing the pipe work would make significant difference.

Some owners did branch of the pipe work under the bed to fit an Alde fan heater in the bathroom wall below the towel hangers.
Something like this.
http://www.alde.co.uk/itemdetails.php?itemId=32

Or take the simple option and fit the towel rail with a in out set up, but i'm not sure what extra heat it any that would produce, Alde could probably answer that.
 

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